Programming iOS 6, 3rd Edition

Navigating Your Code

Developing an Xcode project involves editing code in many files at once. Xcode provides numerous ways to navigate your code. Many of these have been mentioned in previous chapters. Most navigation methods can be tweaked with the Option key to navigate in an assistant pane instead of the main editor, or with Shift-Option to bring up the navigation window.

The Project navigator

If you know something about the name of a file, you can find it quickly in the Project navigator (Command-1) by typing into the search field in the filter bar at the bottom of the navigator (Edit → Filter → Filter in Navigator, Command-Option-J). For example, type xib to see just your nib files. Moreover, after using the filter bar, you can press Tab and then the Up or Down arrow key to navigate the Project navigator. Thus you can reach the desired file with the keyboard alone.

The Symbol navigator

If you highlight the first two icons in the filter bar (the first two are dark, the third is light), the Symbol navigator lists your project’s classes and their methods. Now you can navigate to a desired method. As with the Project navigator, the filter bar’s search field can quickly get you where you want to go.

The jump bar

Every path component of the jump bar is a menu:

The bottom level

At the bottom level (farthest right) in the jump bar is a list of your file’s method and function declarations and definitions, in the order in which they appear (hold Command while choosing the menu ...